Best On-Page SEO Techniques

An ever-growing process, on-page SEO has become a prevailing priority for businesses and in order to get a high result on Google, it takes constant updates and preparation.

In order to obtain a high ranking on Google, while a complicated process, there’s a constant process that must be made to obtain – and more importantly – keep a high ranking.

While highly established techniques are set in place for off-page SEO, equally effective practices must be put in place for on-page SEO as well. On-page SEO means putting an emphasis on optimizing your own website pages and improving your searching rankings organically.

Gaining success on the search engines utilizing on-page SEO can be a very effective tool for your business in obtaining new clients through the power of Google. When you run a well-thought-out process for your on-page SEO process, results can be very lucrative.

On Page SEO Techniques

Here’s a list of items you can adjust as you move towards the top of Google!

URL Optimization

Starting at the top, the internet address of your website has a powerful impact on your website. But shear naming convention alone, your URL (Universal Resource Locator) structure can have an even more impact on your website than you might think!

First off, your domain name should contain some sort of variation of your top keywords to fully maximize your search ranking. Registering LawnCareToronto.com vs JoesMowing.com can have varying degrees of ranking but having the words “Lawn, Care and Toronto” in your domain will take you a lot farther than Joe’s Mowing for example.

Naming conventions take a massive precedence in the eyes of Google and if you can name all your posts and pages in the same manner, you will have a great jump on your competition.

By naming your page with the keyword you desire for the page (example: LawnCareToronto.com/cutting-and-mowing-lawns and not LawnCareToronto.com/about-us), you are actually telling Google the name of your page is “Cutting and Mowing Lawns” and not simply “About Us”, which is prevalent on nearly ALL websites worldwide.

However, be aware not to have your URL keyword-stuffed, which in short means cramming your keywords into the URL (for example LawnCareToronto.com/lawn-mower-lawn-cutting-lawn-maintenance) as Google frowns upon keyword stuffing and may penalize you for doing so.

URL Optimization Quick Hits

• Should have the keyword in URL (example: website.com/whats-hot-this-summer)
• Should be less than 55 characters

Page Speed

A high factor in terms of how Google ranks websites is actual page speed. Besides the fact that when your website or web pages load very slowly, it can frustrate a user visiting your website, Google also makes it a point to penalize you for doing so. As a user on a website yourself, you can see the frustrations associated with a slower website. Most users will give up, or “bounce” in Google terms, and not only not return but visit a competitor’s website instead.

As early as July 2018, Google started to account for mobile page speed times as well, further putting a deeper emphasis on how fast or slow your website pages load. Google’s web crawlers need only a few seconds to crawl your website pages and when the load time takes longer than that allotted time, it will cause the crawler to be cut short, unable to finish its crawl.

There are multiple suggestions on how to achieve a faster load time. Some of the most common suggestions include minimizing or compressing your files, optimizing and compressing the images on the website, simplifying and minimizing your code, reducing page redirects and encouraging browser caching.

Also, if there is too much content on a given website or web page, consider cutting the page in 2 or creating a page with a “Load More” option that will populate the page upon a button click or user interaction. Working with developers who code well and don’t stuff the files with unwanted CSS or JavaScript code can weigh down the website pages, making it slower too.

Image Optimization

Besides being a helpful visual for your website visitor to see what you offer, images on your website can also provide a boost in your website pages if done correctly.

First off, choose your images wisely and ensure that they are compressed as low down as possible without compromising the quality of the image. By compressing the image, you take the speed down significantly for your website pages and create a better, more smooth user experience.

When you choose your image, ensure there are no copyright issues and that you have the rights to post those images on your website. If you are using your own imagery, that won’t be a problem. But when downloading images for your website from stock photography websites, ensure you get the proper copyrights to properly post to your site.

Another great tip is to make sure that the images on your website reflect the content on the page. Meaning, if for example, your website page is selling “Lawn Mowers”, make sure the image on that particular page is indicating the same keyword or phrases.

The way to achieve this is by naming the actual JPEG or PNG file with the same keyword or phrase (example: lawn-mower.jpg and not DCS1892.jpg). When you place the image in your website, also ensure you add the “Alt” tag to the image, which means alternative text for those with visual impairments can benefit from the image you’ve placed on your website.

By following these steps, it will help the SEO on that website page by improving it with the properly optimized image on the page.

Image Optimization Quick Hits

• There should be at least 3 images per article
• At least one of the images should have the keyword in the file name (example: summer-fashion.jpg)
• Add alt tag with keyword to the image when uploading to page
• After compressing an image, right-click, go to file options and add keywords/ tags, then upload it to the site
• Use the secondary images to highlight locations and/or descriptions (example: summer-fashion-toronto.jpg)

Page Title

On every page on every website, marked up in HTML, is the “Title tag” which sits at the top of your web page’s HTML code indicating the title of the page you’re on. It tells users about what information they’ll be reading on this particular page and more importantly, will tell Google what content will be showcased on the page.

This is a great place to get your keyword or key phrases in full view and should be utilized to the fullest on every page you create. By indicating what the titles are on every page, you tell Google what the page is about through the keywords and phrases you want to rank high on.

The Title tag is indicated in the HTML with the common tags and shown as <title></title> in the code. A few tips when creating your Title tags include, keeping the tag to under 60 characters as Google may not go beyond those first 50-60 characters on your web page. Give every page on your website its own unique title and avoid duplicates, as Google will catch it and you want to diversify your website’s content as well as possible. Also, keep your keywords and phrases in the first portion of the title and that will achieve the best possible results.

Page Title Quick Hits

• Should be 50-60 Characters
• Keyword should be at the beginning of the title
• Use “-“ instead of “|” in between of phrasing
• Title suggestion: Make a question or something enticing that will be intriguing or what people are thinking

Page Headings

<h1> and <h2> are HTML tags that refer to headings and subheadings of your page. There are six headings tags in HTML, from H1 to H6. Headings help Google to get an idea of what content you have on a page and how relevant it might be for a Google search.

It is important that your headings help the user and Google understand how content is structured on a web page. So, exercise logic when you select a heading and subheadings for your page.

Do not use these tags for anything other than headings. To rank a page higher, insert a page keyword into your <h1> heading and insert it at least once in either of the sub-headings (<h2>, <h3> etc. if available).

Page Heading Quick Hits

• Keyword or phrase in the first and last sentence of the article
• The article should have a progression of H1, then h2, then H3, etc..
• H1 tag: have keywords in H1 title and should have only one H1 on page
• Keyword(s) should be in 3% of the article but not more. Can use keyword density to measure the number of words vs keywords

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Meta Description

When you arrive at a Google results page for anything you search, you will always find the results in the following way. The result will be highlighted in blue, indicating its blue color and linkability. That’s the title of the page that you are clicking on. Just below that is what’s called the “Meta Description”.

The Meta Description is a small description, usually a sentence or two tops, offering a short snippet about what the page is about. It’s important to include the keyword or phrase within that description so you maximize its value on Google. It’s equally important to write readable sentences and not just cram the keywords or phrases into the description as it should read well just as you would want it to be read.

As with the title tags and the header tags, we recommend putting the keywords or phrases at the beginning of the meta description to fully take advantage of its purpose.

Meta Description Quick Hits

• Keyword should be at the beginning of the description
• Up to 160 Characters
• Should be natural sounding

Links

External Linking

Essential to the SEO process is linking to external websites to, in essence, bring your website up by linking to a higher ranking website. As important as it is to externally link is to internally link within your website. This means to link to other locations within your website – both from a user experience standpoint and from a Google standpoint.

Internal Linking

By adding internal links within your website you will help the web crawlers an easy path from place to place within your website and properly analyze and index your pages easily. By making it easy for the spider to crawl within your website easily through internal linking, it will add more credence to your website.

Be sure though when you link that it’s done in a natural way and doesn’t link incorrectly or out of place. Your website pages should be readable and natural and shouldn’t confuse either the user or the search engine. In order to maximize the optimization point of the link, we recommend linking using the keyword or phrase to link to the external or internal page.

Internal Linking Quick Hits

• Interlink within blog posts to other areas in the website.
• Should have at least 2 links within the blog post
• Should have 2-3 links to other websites to increase site’s ranking
  • Those other sites should have a high authority online. Can check authority through Website Authority Checker
  • Don’t link to competitor websites
  • Can link to competitors as long as they’re not in your jurisdiction or niche (like in another country or other niche)
  • Suggest linking to Government or Education websites

Language on Website

Word of caution when creating new web pages or posts is to write your content out naturally and make sure it’s readable. Gone are the days when you could stuff the pages with your keywords over and over.

Google doesn’t rank pages higher when websites do that and actually penalizes them for doing so.

Having readable, clear text for your users to read will make it easy for your customers and for Google to read and will help rank your page higher!

More time on your Website

With the internet full of websites and web pages across every aspect of life, it’s important you make your website shine out from the rest. With the competition constantly looking at ways to one-up the other, finding ways to stand out is even more important now than ever!

By offering informative content with engaging images and videos, it will provide a better user experience for your customers and visitors. By applying the above helpful tips for your search engine optimization efforts, you will not only appease your customers but Google too!

Ask All the Way Up Media, an SEO agency, about making your website shine and stand out and be a top-dog on the search engines!

6 reasons why to hire an SEO company.

Our internet marketing company has years of experience with extremely knowledgeable SEO experts. Get in touch with us today.

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